100 Replies

VMs have their place, but the lack of VMs isn't going to doom a business to failure.

Their place is effectively everywhere. The concern isn't the lack of VMs. It is the massively foolish decision making process that makes them continue to avoid them. It shows an underlying problem of some significance. VMs aren't a "maybe" technology. This shows people making decisions who are completely out of touch with the times (by decades) and lack the decision making skills to either do research, gain knowledge themselves or defer to people who know what they are doing.

I believe in virtualizing every server. But I don't believe that a company that doesn't use VMs is doomed to failure. That's just absurd. It may mean they are out of touch and need education, but if you narrowed down the reasons businesses fail I don't think lack of virtualization will even be a blip on the screen.

Do I think he should make a good case for it? Yup. Would I jump ship if they still said no? Yup. But not because they're doomed, but because he is.

You are still sticking to the VMs being a factor. They are not. The concerns are their business practices. The VMs are the symptom, not the issue.

The company was started by 3 software developers that got into making software for medical billing and coding, and they are the ones that want to move away from all things virtual.

Wow! This is scary. These people claim to be developers and think this way? That's terrifying. I suppose they don't believe in source control, testing and other best practices in software development too.

I was thinking that these were just incompetent managers. But this is incompetence to the core.

I love that, in this thread, those of us who have dealt with this kind of management is already slightly angry and drinking more coffee and typing angrily as if the managements of times past would finally learn...feels good to know i'm not the only one who has/is dealt with such people.

I love that, in this thread, those of us who have dealt with this kind of management is already slightly angry and drinking more coffee and typing angrily as if the managements of times past would finally learn...feels good to know i'm not the only one who has/is dealt with such people.

Sounds like the development guys are a bit set in their ways and just don't want to branch out .. I am thinking the vbox experience is somewhat of an excuse to blow you off. Not meaning to be abrasive but it sounds like they just dismiss the idea and don't even want to talk about it.

First and foremost I'm not in your boat ( thank GOD i can make the choice of going to VM's or staying physical) but 2nd I am also like you, I dabbed a few VM's in Virtual Box (but for testing purposes only) and I concluded I could handle the VM aspects of Type II's and just in general getting her done :) I'm on my next phase of moving to only 3 Boxes. We couldn't keep up with process of just buying a machine and making it do one thing, for one the cooling KILLED US. In fact we had almost NO COOLING! Just imagine my horror waking up every day to that. So in short virtualizing makes it so much easier for me to buy less equipment but more bang for buck. I don't have to spend buttloads of cash on power distribution, cooling and wiring and general time it would take for me to hook all that up!

My goal is to have 3 hosts 1 really for production and 1 for back up and another for development/testing/general recovery point. I'm not spending butt loads of cash on 3 servers I'm repurposing one Dell Power Edge server which is just as standard as it get and doesn't have 2 NICs! I'm upgrading it to 32 GB RAM and adding one more HDD to give me RAID 10 with decent storage. After that the next two machines will be refurbished and both will have 32 GB RAM and enough HDD for our needs. After that man its not much too it but debating which Hypervisor to use and the management and backup suite.

Normally i'd agree wholeheartedly (how many times has a customer brought in a fortune magazine article loaded with fluff and wanted you to implement the buzzwords there?).

However, he works there whereas you and i have customers. We get to bill them for their incorrect choices, he should be planning with the idea of limited downtime and good performance and scalability, because he'll catch the blame if it doesn't work either way. He should at least err on the side of caution with planning, and virtualizing makes DR and BC MUCH easier, especially on a budget where you can't have spares of your servers sitting there.

I wasn't always a service provider. I was an engineer for IBM and held a few IT positions after that with some small businesses. Speaking from my experience pushing too hard for something then makes you its scapegoat. Yes, as IT folk we are always responsible for everything, but we are not always to blame.

I am not arguing against the merits of VMs, nor against educating about its benefit. I am arguing against forcing the issue.

I wasn't always a service provider. I was an engineer for IBM and held a few IT positions after that with some small businesses. Speaking from my experience pushing too hard for something then makes you its scapegoat. Yes, as IT folk we are always responsible for everything, but we are not always to blame.

I am not arguing against the merits of VMs, nor against educating about its benefit. I am arguing against forcing the issue.

I can understand that...i almost got skinned over a poor VOIP implementation just because i was present at the meetings and agreed it sounded good. I came up to speed REAL FAST on voip to collect data to show it was the vendor's setup and not on us. I didn't even push for it and almost got stuck with it :(

Let me preface this by saying that, if the decision is theirs, then it's theirs. All you can do is give them the facts. So, step up to the plate, and give a good swing, but don't be surprised if you do end up striking out anyway.

Also, another preface, I'm sure a lot of what I'm about to say has already been mentioned, but (as a virtualization fanboi) I feel I must throw in my two virtual cents.

As SAM suggested, they should be supplying reasons for not going virtual. From what I read in your OP, I see that they are a little apprehensive to get back on the horse with this given their original implementation of a virtualized infrastructure. Here's my 3 part explanation of why they are doing something stupid:

1) The gave virtualization about 10% of a try with VirtBox. That is not virtualization's fault. That is theirs for expecting steak when ordering spam.

2) Congratulations to them for deciding to actually work using business-class hardware, but they are deciding to match it with a business model from 1999.

3) They don't see the value that virtualization can add, which is because of item 1 in this list. Beyond the savings in power, cooling, and physical space, virtualization also allows them to easily:

-a) make super-efficient use of the hardware they are purchasing for these new servers.

-b) create an inexpensive disaster recovery solution that would cost them twice what they are paying now if they tried to implement it using a physical setup (cost of two of every physical server > cost of two of every virtual server)

-c) ensure that their environment is up as close to 99.999% of the time as possible.

I don't mean to downplay VirtBox, but I know I wouldn't want to build an entire infrastructure upon it, at least no more than I would want to try to roll out a VDI using Windows Virtual PC. To be blunt, they half-assed their virutalization attempt and it came back to bite them, and really the same result will happen in any IT endeavor: try to cut corners by hosting a server environment on an eMachine, and you will be disappointed in the results. Just the same, if you really want to virtualize, you really have to try. That means going VMware, Hyper-V, or Xen. I'm not too sure about the outer two, but I know that Hyper-V has a free version, just be prepared for Powershelling All The Things! Doing virtualization as they did is like riding a 10-speed bike in the Indy500: you will lose and you will become frustrated that things aren't working out as you had hoped.

Virtualization is happening whether they like it or not. To borrow a very crude bit of dark humor from Family Guy, "it's like sex with Kobe Bryant; you can kick and scream all you want, but it's going to happen." I do want to say kudos to them for trying out the overall concept without waiting too late, but the thing about going virtual to physical is that unless there is a very, very good reason for doing so, you will inevitably find yourself going to virtual anyway. So, one of my questions to them would be that if they are willing to throw down money to modernize their server infrastructure to actual business-class servers, why stop there? It sounds to me like they are two steps behind, and they only want to take one step to catch up, not realizing that taking that other step would be best for them. Okay, really, it's more like they are one step behind and one step to the side, but I digress.

Ask any one of your decision-makers to open the properties of their computer's storage volume. If your desktops are like mine, they will have a 500GB HDD. How much of that space is used? Probably relatively little. That is waste of resources and ultimately a waste of money. Now, put that in the context of a server which was purchased with a large array of storage disks. It might be nice to have that 32TB of disk space on your DHCP server, but I will bet my next paycheck that very little of it will be used. Now, imagine that you could lend some of that storage out to your Exchange server. Virtualization allows that to happen. You can give a VM a reasonable HDD space and add to it when needed. No more unused HDD space. Resource efficiency = financial efficiency.

Let's say the decision-makers are simply hellbent on going physical. Are they going to buy two of every server in case the running version of the server dies and a backup must be brought online quickly? I doubt it. In my environment, we have a gastroenterology program running on 3 Server 2008 R2 VMs in a Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V host. When I was tasked with setting up these servers, I grabbed some spare hardware and put together another server box which runs the free version of Hyper-V. I then told the main server to replicate all 3 of the VMs to the spare. If the main server dies in the middle of the day, I can failover to the spare and the gastroenterology site can keep on rolling. How long does it take to spin the spare up? Wheels are up within a minute of me getting the call that the main server is down.﻿ How much did the spare cost? ﻿Only how much they pay me to work for 2.5 hours setting it up.﻿ Free Hyper-V = $0. License cost for the VMs = $0, as replicas stay offline until the active version of the VM goes offline. Total cost of hardware = $0, all spare hardware.

This last point ties in with DR a lot, but high availability (HA) is extremely easy in a virtualized environment. By way of clustering and shared storage, you can automate your infrastructure to create a new VM when one gets overburdened. Clustering allows for updates to be applied with 0 downtime. Ask them how much money would be lost if one of the physical servers dies and a replacement cannot be brought online for a day.

In short, by going physical they have already spent more than they would have going with a similar virtual setup due simply to the inefficiency of resources. If they take the same demands and place them in a business-class virtualized environment, they are taking two steps toward modernization versus one, with an environment that cuts costs in power, cooling, and physical space as well as one that does not waste resources (ergo, money), allows for easy recovery in the case of a server failure, and reduces the amount of downtime by regularly maintenance and/or unexpected server strain due to over-utilization of a server. And they can have most of this for an additional $0 over what they are spending now due to the free version of Hyper-V Server 2012 R2.

You state that their current "virtual environment" had/has issues. What are/were those issues? If you shared what their hesitations are some of the spiceworks experts may be able to provide you with rational arguments/reasons as to why they are wrong. It seems highly unlikely but perhaps the devs are not wrong in their arguments.

I would set up a host server, and import a couple of non-critical servers onto it.
Then, cost up the new physical servers that they want to buy. And also the cost of the virtual hosts. Depends on load, but you could run with 2 hosts. Have half of the machines on one, the other half on the other. You can backup the VMs to the other machine, so in the event of a disaster you have a backup that you can restart *really* quickly. There are other ways of doing this, but this way is quick & cheap.

You can then show the performance of a decent virtualised solution, describe a typical restore scenario and demonstrate how to save a whole bunch of cash. Remember to include the running costs of cooling & power.

If they still are not convinced, then you will never convince them. You then have to decide what to do - stay and do what they want, or move to another company. I used to work for a small software house that had similar thoughts about other things, and my choice was to leave to run my own company.

If you have not yet done so, you should try to see if there is a VMware Users Group in your area. Even if you don't want to use VMware as your virtual platform, the people in this group will be able to give you advice, and someone may even be willing to take a look at your current environment and make some personalized recommendations. (Of course always do your homework to make sure you are understanding everything, and getting the best solution for your business needs).

The only issue with virtual servers I can see is if the physical server it is running off of craps out and then you are down 5 servers that you need. Now I know you will be smart enough to make redundancies and we have that where I work but always that "what if" is in the back of my mind.

I'm actually surprised some people read that rant I posted a little ways up this thread. Thanks.

Anyhow, the only negative that can come from virtualization is the fact that it does (by nature of being an additional step in the server installation/configuration process) add time to the project. But, if they are worried about that, I have over 200 hours worth of paid time off where I work, I will come to Houston (right city?) to help put it together.

They'd just have to reimburse me for the travel, lodging, and food expenses.

To me this is a very simple issue to deal with. Show them the price and advantages to go virtual. Show them the price and disadvantages to go with physical servers. If they choose to go with the disadvantages and to go with paying more for that many physical servers, it is their company they can do what they want and you will have job security because you will have more work to do!

In the mean time though I would make some good contacts with some VARs that sell virtualization and set up some meetings with the owners so the business consultants can ﻿convince﻿ them that a virtualization strategy is best for your company. That is what they do day in and day out for their clients and they will be far better at making a compelling argument. Although I think you probably have the skills to do so yourself, it will be received better from an outside source.

Using Hyper-v to host our MRP software, Exchange 2010, and Linux MailScanner, and it works great! With the inexpensive cost of hardware, why not purchase a very robust server and host all the services through visualization.

VirtualBox is very convenient for legacy services, e.g., there's a company that's running a very old account software package that runs on DOS/Netware. Installed VirtualBox on their Windows Server and bridged the network for their access, works great!

My question is this, what can I do to try and convince them to move towards virtualization?..

Reverse it... make them come up with ANY reasons for not virtualizing.

Here's one from the original poster...

﻿ From what I have researched, I would absolutely love to move to VMware with Vsphere, but don't have any real world experience with it so my opinion on the matter gets overlooked.

﻿﻿﻿From management's point of view, you want to conduct a grand experiment. You've read a few posts that say, "Virtualize Everything!" and want to try it. That's great.

What if management came to you and said, "We're ripping out our Cisco ASA. We're going to put in a software defined firewall that researched a little but don't have any real world experience with. But a lot of people think it's a good idea."

I think you'd be on here complaining how crazy that idea is. Well, think how what you're proposing sounds to them. Sure, sure, it's the "industry standard." But not at your company it isn't, right?

Business decisions are made based on business principles. If the features of virtualization are either not important or are already available in a different way (as if there was NO backup, NO failover, NO anything before virtualization), then there is no compelling reason to virtualize. On the other hand, if you can find a compelling reason, then the technology will sell itself.

My question is this, what can I do to try and convince them to move towards virtualization?

First, understand that all you can do is ﻿try﻿. Ultimately, they're the ones running the show. If the inmates have taken over the asylum, you have three choices:

Strip off and join the insanity. While this might be fun for a short time, eventually something will go horribly, terribly wrong and you'll be on the hook to fix a situation that should have never been in the first place.

Grit your teeth and bear it. IT ran on purely physical servers for decades. If these idiots want to spend that kind of cash on a purely physical infrastructure, c'est la vie. Keep everything running and protected as well as you can. Document how much time is spend on this, and keep making the case for visualization every 3-6 months.

Tell 'em to bugger off and go find a job where your opinion is valued. Seriously. They hired you to "do IT" so they didn't have to. If they're so insistent on keeping their fingers in this particular bit of the operational pie, ﻿why are you there? ﻿I can hire a high school kid for minimum wage to follow care & feeding scripts.

Since you're still pretty green, it can be very tempting to simply join the insanity. Don't. You clearly already understand the benefits of virtualization for the organization. Let's assume for the time being that you're going with the "Grit your teeth and bear it" option. (Because even if you're planning to tell them to do creative, if NSFW, things with their job, you still need to work until you find another gig. Unless you're independently wealthy, in which case, ﻿immediately﻿ tell them to bugger off, pack your private jet, and spend a week in Monaco with a supermodel or six.)

So what's to do?

Step 1: Learn to Speak Boss. Many poor IT decisions can be traced directly to the fact that IT isn't clearly communicating to Leadership. (Many other poor IT decisions can be traced to the fact the people running the show are idiots, but for now I'll run contrary to SAM and assume this is not, in fact, the case.) IT often ﻿thinks﻿ they're communicating, but they're speaking IT. Bosses don't typically speak IT, they typically speak Boss. Therefore, IT needs to learn to communicate in terms of Cost/Benefit, ROI, and other language that is (or should be) meaningful to people making business decisions.

Step 2: Make your case. Present your idea (speaking Boss) as best you can. Keep it light on the tech. Identify the problem at a high, easy to understand level. Give your solution, and support your reasoning with facts that are relevant. Focus on how your plan benefits the organization, not on how efdup the current setup is. Money is ﻿part﻿ of this, but it's not ﻿all﻿ of it. If they can spend $100/month and increase the reliability of a system by 300%, that's a good ROI by nearly any measure. I've a client about to sign on for a new managed service offering that will add about $250/month to their regular billing ... and doing so brings all kinds of benefits to them.

If your boss is resistant to even hearing the proposal, have a frank conversation about their concerns. LISTEN at least twice as much as you speak, and make sure you repeat back your understanding. Use non-aggressive phrasing that encourages communication instead of triggering defensive attitudes. For example, asking, "Why don't you want to virtualize?" tends to put the listener in a position to defend their decision ... and that may not go over well with your boss. Instead try, "Help me understand your concerns about virtualizing our servers." This invites discussion, which, after all, is really what you want. Once you understand their concerns (legitimate or not), you can address them.

Step 3: Deal with the fallout. As I mentioned above, unless you have purchase authority you're ultimately not the one making the decision on how to spend the money. All you can do is the best you can with what you've been given. You either live with it or move on.

If your boss is resistant to even hearing the proposal, have a frank conversation about their concerns. LISTEN at least twice as much as you speak, and make sure you repeat back your understanding. Use non-aggressive phrasing that encourages communication instead of triggering defensive attitudes. For example, asking, "Why don't you want to virtualize?" tends to put the listener in a position to defend their decision ... and that may not go over well with your boss. Instead try, "Help me understand your concerns about virtualizing our servers." This invites discussion, which, after all, is really what you want. Once you understand their concerns (legitimate or not), you can address them.

Y'know, now that I think about it, I'd actually recommend you ﻿start﻿ with this. Understanding their concerns before you start your pitch will certainly increase your odds.

You are still sticking to the VMs being a factor. They are not. The concerns are their business practices. The VMs are the symptom, not the issue.

And you are making assumptions based on this symptom. And we can play that game and arrive at the same place, but we are only making suppositions.

I am, that's true. But around the approach to it as presented. They intentionally used a bogus test and claim false results. They refuse to listed to best practices or understand why they did something obviously wrong. They are covering up their own mistakes. They are technical developers with tech gaps that they won't admit.

It's the symptom that points to the issue. But the issue is there without the need of the symptom.